Vercelli Book

The presence of the volume was explained by a hospice catering especially to English pilgrims that was founded by Jacopo Guala Bicchieri (d. 1227), bishop of Vercelli, who had been papal legate in England 1216–1218.

[1] In the words of a modern critic, "The Vercelli Book appears ... to have been put together from a number of different exemplars with no apparent overall design in mind.

In most cases, he copied the dialect and the manuscript punctuation that was found in the original texts, and these aspects therefore aid in reconstructing the variety of exemplars.

The arrangement of the homilies, coupled with the placement of the poetic pieces, creates a manuscript which Scragg considers to be "one of the most important vernacular books to survive from the pre-Conquest period".

Blume reported his find to German historian Johann Martin Lappenberg, who in turn wrote to the British antiquary Charles Purton Cooper.

[8] Given Vercelli's remote location (across the Alps for German and English scholars), Maier's was the only available transcription for decades; Julius Zupitza's 1877 edition was the first one based on a new inspection of the manuscript.